Mistress: A Novel

by Anita Nair

  The doctor frowned. He didn’t like being hurried. He stared into the distance as if collecting his thoughts. Then he sighed and turned to face Sethu. ‘The next morning, when I got there, her aunt who was perhaps the only one who cared about the woman, had the stool sample in a matchbox and the urine in a little mud pot. All very routine stuff. And then she whispered that the patient wanted to see me. She had something to show me.

  ‘The thought of that cowshed nauseated me. It stank of cow piss. But I wouldn’t let it stop me, I thought, and went.

  ‘The cowshed seemed darker than ever. I don’t know why it reminded me of a delivery room. I knew I was being fanciful, illogical even, but I couldn’t help it.

  ‘The woman was waiting for me. She thrust a cloth into my face.

  ‘“Here’s my child,” she said, opening out the cloth.

  ‘Seth, in my entire life as a doctor I have never seen a tapeworm that big. It was at least four metres long, and banded—you know what that means, don’t you? Like bands of tape stuck together.

  ‘“How?” I stuttered in shock.

  ‘“What do you mean how?” she demanded. “I told you, didn’t I? About my snake children. But no one believes me. Which is why I kept this one to show you. I usually put them on the termite hill to the south of the house. “Go, my babies,” I tell them, and every day I take a coconut shell of milk and turmeric for them.”

  ‘I stood there aghast. The poor woman probably had a cyst in her brain as well. She was a walking trogle of tapeworms. If she was ejecting them through her vagina, it probably meant she had a severe recto-anal fistula as well. And that is a rarity by itself. But none of this made me wonder as much as the presence of the parasite.

  ‘I turned to her aunt and said in my sternest voice, “Tell me the truth. Has she a lover?”

  ‘The woman’s eyes widened in shock. “She is a married woman,” she said.

  ‘“Since when did that prevent a woman from taking a lover?” I asked. “You must tell me, for I have to know who’s been feeding her meat. She has taenia cestodes. That thing she’s swaddled in a cloth and calls her baby is a tapeworm, which can come only from beef or pig’s meat.’

  ‘What do you think would have happened in the normal course if I made an accusation of that sort? She would have beaten her breasts and made a ruckus. Called me names and had her menfolk throw me out for mouthing such heresy. Instead, the aunt wouldn’t meet my eyes.

  ‘“No, no,” she mumbled.

  ‘“Then how do you explain it? You get this infection only if you eat meat. And you are brahmins, vegetarians,” I pointed out.

  ‘She stared at her feet and said, “We eat pork.”

  ‘“What?” I cried in shock. I don’t think I had ever been so shocked by anything before. I felt my legs wouldn’t hold me up any more. These brahmins ate pork! I think I must have stuttered, “I don’t understand …”

  ‘“Many years ago, when the smallpox epidemic was raging, our priest had a dream. He told us that the goddess of smallpox, Periya Amman, said that if we wished to let the pox bypass us, we must eat pork. The thick layer of fat of the pig would serve as a talisman. It would protect us. It would keep us alive and our skins would remain soft and smooth, unpitted by scars.

  “They almost killed the priest when he narrated his dream. But every night Amman came to him. He called a council of elders and said, You know that I have never swerved from the brahminical path. That I have upheld each one of our dictates. Amman has come for a whole week in my dreams. Every night, she gets angrier and angrier. Last night she was furious. She said, Is it that you do not trust me, or is it that you think you know better? I will not appear again, but if you do not do as I say, in less that a month’s time your entire village will be wiped out.

  ‘“No one dared ignore his words then. But who would do the deed of buying the pork and cooking it? The priest suggested that we draw lots. You see, no one wanted to defile themselves. But before that happened, a group of young men offered to go. They said that when the pork was brought, everyone would have to eat it. So why worry about being defiled? They went away and came back with the meat and a recipe to cook it. The women were all summoned and told what to do with the meat. We set aside separate vessels to cook the meat and bowls to eat it from. None of us cared for it; we did it because it was a dictate from heaven and no one dared disobey. Ever after, every few months, our men travel to a place where no one knows them and bring back enough meat for the village. Smallpox, cholera, plague, jaundice, none of this affects us. As you can see, it works for us. We’ve never been ill,” she finished defiantly.

  ‘I said nothing. Their hypocrisy nauseated me. Nauseates me to this day. They think all the rest of us are untouchables. But to save their skins, they’ll eat even pig’s meat.’

  Sethu shivered. This was one of the doctor’s finest stories.

  ‘How do you think they cooked the pork?’ Sethu asked.

  ‘How would I know?’ The doctor’s sarcasm made Sethu wince. ‘Not adequately, for how would they know how to cook meat?’

  ‘What happened then? Did you cure the woman?’ Sethu asked.

  The doctor wiped his brow. ‘I hid my repugnance for them—or so I thought. I went back the next day with enough medicines for the woman and for the entire village. I wondered what the intestines of the others were like. Were all of them invaded by T. solium?

  ‘Perhaps, I thought, this woman was one of the poorest of the lot and had received no medical attention, while the others were treating themselves elsewhere, just as they got their meat from some distant place. That is a common enough occurrence, you know. Why, no one here in Nazareth would come to me if they showed any symptoms of leprosy. They would go elsewhere. Leprosy is endemic to this region. Did you know that? Last month …’

  Sethu cut in with, ‘Doctor, what happened when you went back to the village?’

  ‘They wouldn’t let me see the woman. They said they had their means of treating madness and they didn’t need my services any longer. The woman’s aunt must have told one of the men about her confession. They didn’t want me coming there any more. And they said if I were to tell anyone about it, they would deny everything and say that I was slandering them because they had resisted my attempts to convert them.

  ‘“I am a doctor,” I said. “And a gentleman.”

  ‘“All that is fine,” one of them said. “But if we hear stories about what you know, we will ensure you never talk again. We have broken one dictate already and sinned. Do you think we are afraid of sin any more?”

  ‘That was what scared me. They are lawless creatures. Barbarians in brahminical disguise. They are afraid of nothing and that is frightening. That is the honest truth.’

  ‘So am I the first one you have told this to?’ Sethu asked, turning to look at the village. It seemed harmless. A small drab village in a tract of barren wilderness.

  ‘I told a few of my friends in Madras. I had to. I had to tell someone. But they wouldn’t believe my story. They said I should have been a writer instead of a doctor. That my imagination was better than my knowledge of anatomy …the fools!’

  Sethu turned to look at the village. The doctor’s stories were normally parables. They had a moral at the end, a good Christian edict. That this story was free of it made him believe the doctor. What nature of place have I been exiled to, he asked himself, feeling more trapped than ever. A place where women are stuffed in urns and brahmins eat pork. Where Faith, Hope and Charity have feet and the landscape is a flat brown?

  Then Sethu saw his first salt pan and knew that if he didn’t escape soon, he never would. For here, even salt was trapped by the land.

  Sethu was not to know it then, but he was right when he thought that the land exercised a power that wasn’t easy to understand. It trapped all that which came into its periphery.

  Long ago, or perhaps it is simpler to say, in the beginning, was a ship. A ship that had a prayer deck and sailcloths to harness Allah the Alm
ighty’s blessings and the winds. A ship that charted its course under the captaincy of the incomparable Malik, with its most precious cargo—the Sahabakkal: Abu Backer, Omar, Ali and Usman. Acolytes of the Prophet, ordained by the Caliph to set forth and spread the word.

  In the beginning, they sailed the seas seeking new homes for the word. They sailed along the coast of Malabar, turned a corner and chose to cruise along the eastern coast. They hadn’t gone too far when they discovered the city of the holy diamond—the Pavitramanicka patnam. On one side, the sea flanked the town and on the other side was the river Tamarabarani. Malik said to the acolytes, ‘Here you can fulfil part of your pledge to the Prophet. Here you can wipe out all traces of the shaitan and do what the Prophet expected you to do.’

  What that was neither the incomparable Malik nor the Sahabakkal knew. Nevertheless, they persevered.

  When the acolytes began to despair of making even one convert, Malik decided to return. He had his men mend the sails and swab the decks and then he told the acolytes, ‘Look around you. Is there anything here that makes the infidels of this region think of God? Any God? Theirs, or ours? Perhaps we need to find fresh soil to sow the seeds of Islam.’

  The acolytes stared at the scrubland, the heaving ocean and miles of sand dunes and felt a great pang of homesickness. They thought: There is beauty in our desert kingdoms. Here the desert is barren land. But they couldn’t give up. And so they preached all that they had been taught. When they left, their legacy to the land and the people was the body of Abu Backer, buried in a patch of land the villagers left alone. Thus, the acolytes sowed the seeds of Arabipatnam, the city of Arabs.

  Two hundred years had to pass before the Kahirs arrived. They were Egyptians looking to navigate the seas for ports that would fill their ships with the fragrance of spices and their coffers with wealth. Mohammed Khalifi was not the incomparable Malik, but he too had his prayer deck and sailcloth and, more than that, he had a spirit of adventure that propelled him to go on. He ventured beyond the Pavitramanicka patnam and there he espied a natural harbour. One that would suffice for him to drop anchor. He saw that in the land that lay beyond the harbour his men would discover again that the earth was flat and still under their feet. When they turned to the Kabaah to say their prayers, it would not heave and buckle under their bodies.

  In the sands beyond the natural harbour, he discovered a tomb with an Arabic inscription. It was Abu Backer’s tomb. Mohammed Khalifi knew a sadness like he had never known before and in that moment he set out to build a mosque.

  His men were sailors, but Khalifi had them move stone and mortar, and five times a day they paused in their labours to fall to their knees and pray. The people of the region stared at the men more than the mosque. What religion was this that demanded that a man think of God as punctuation marks to space the day? They stared at the men, puzzled, and promptly named them Anjuvanthanar—they who prayed five times a day.

  Arabipatnam, the dream of the acolytes, became Arabipatnam, a living breathing city. Khalifi’s ship sailed back and forth and slowly more men arrived, bearing in the bellies of their ships a cargo that would fetch them the fine spices they wanted. Look at this, the traders said, touting their cargo: the finest of Arab horses. In our desert lands there is nothing more precious than these horses that stand sixteen hands high! Look at their coats, like satin. And see this mane …when you pleat it, it will rival the finest braid of silk!

  The king of the region looked at the horses and the Anjuvanthanar. The lines of the horses matched the straight gaze of the men in their white robes. The king ordered a fleet of ten thousand horses and promised to fill the bellies of the ships with pepper, cardamom and ginger.

  The horses arrived, and with them in the stables, the traders did a brisk business in saddles, bridles, stirrups and reins. Ten thousand Arab horses strengthened the king’s army all right, the Commander-in-chief said, but his men couldn’t ride. ‘What are we to do with the horses?’ he asked the leader of the Anjuvanthanar.

  The leader sighed. He had his men, who rode the horses as well as the seas, teach the king’s men to ride and groom the beasts. Then the Anjuvanthanar left, promising to return when the monsoon winds could be harnessed again.

  Ten thousand Egyptian Arab horses, all descended from the purebred Keheilan. Each one a descendant of the horses that were part of the royal stables of the Pharaoh and so beloved to him that he, Ramses II, proclaimed: Henceforth these horses shall be fed before I am. Every day.

  Ten thousand Egyptian Arab horses, each bearing the imprint of the creator in the line that ran from eye to nostril, mane flowing and tail carried high. The horses enchanted the king and his men. And such was the spell they cast that the soldiers, who had mounted no creatures apart from their women, now wouldn’t stay away from their saddles.

  In the saddle, each soldier, no matter how puny or riddled by fear, knew a transformation. The power of horse muscles between his legs, the lordly height, the mastery over this being that was so light on its feet and yet so steady, devouring vast distances with no sign of fatigue, made him in his own mind a warrior prince. Blessed by the gods, untouched by the vagaries of destiny.

  Ten thousand Egyptian Arab horses. In less than a year’s time, nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine were dead. And the one that survived stood with its head hanging, maimed and lame.

  The Anjuvanthanar couldn’t believe their ears. Nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine horses dead! ‘How could you do this?’ their leader wept. ‘It grieves my heart that you have killed these horses. It grieves my heart more than any evil deed you could do.’

  ‘We did nothing wrong,’ the Commander-in-chief protested. ‘We fed them, groomed and rode them …and then they dropped dead. There is one horse left. Come see for yourself this wonderful specimen you saddled us with!’

  The leader of the traders went to the stables. The stalls were haunted with ghostly neighing. In a stall stood a lone horse.

  The leader crooned to it in Arabic. The horse limped towards him. The leader stroked its head and when the horse looked into his eyes as if to ask, why did you leave me and my kin here with these barbarians, his heart almost broke.

  The leader fell to his knees to plead forgiveness of this magnificent beast and saw that the horse had just one shoe left.

  He turned to the soldier who had gone with him and snapped, ‘You tell me that you cared for these horses, but all I see is neglect. Have your blacksmith shoe this horse.’

  ‘What shoe?’ the soldier asked. ‘Do horses wear shoes?’

  ‘Not real shoes, you imbecile kafir,’ the leader screamed in rage, in Arabic. ‘This,’ he said, pointing to the horse’s foot.

  ‘No one here would know how to do this,’ the soldier said.

  Then it dawned on the leader that nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine horses had been ridden to ground by these moronic men who didn’t know that horses had to be shod.

  He sought an audience with the king. ‘Send a few of your men with us and we’ll teach them how to shoe horses, our Arab horses,’ he added as an afterthought.

  The king stared at the ceiling and then at a point beyond the leader’s ear. He scratched the side of his nose and tugged at a lock of his hair. The king didn’t like being forced into decisions. Besides, he didn’t like the idea of sending his men away to a distant land. God knows what new ideas they would come back with. He thought for a while and said, ‘That will be impossible. It is a sin for us to cross the seas. Send us a few of your men instead and let them teach mine how to shoe horses.’

  Who would want to come here, the leader wondered. Who would agree to do so? Then he thought of the Prophet’s teaching: Every man must love his horse. He thought of the nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine dead horses and the sole maimed survivor. The spectre of a fleet of horses would haunt him forever, he thought, and agreed.

  The men arrived a few months later. Their nostrils, almost as fine as the horses’, flared at what the
y saw. Their eyes, used to the poetry of the circles that formed when the wind raised the sand, the rise and fall of the dunes as they stretched to the horizon, were distressed by this flat brown land that was pock-marked with shrivelled bushes; here and there, like hair on a fourteen-year-old’s chin stood a scraggly tree. And worse were the people. Kafirs with skin as dark as coal, and emitting a bodily odour that was unlike anything they had smelt before. Even their homes bore the same reek.

  ‘We must live apart,’ they told the leader. ‘In a place where we can recreate a semblance of home.’

  ‘Yes, you must,’ the leader agreed. ‘I shall ask the king for some land near the Juma. You will be a kingdom within a kingdom.’

  The men smiled. They liked the thought of a kingdom within a kingdom. Then one who wasn’t as shy as the others voiced aloud what was on all their minds. ‘It is imperative that we remain who we are. But we are men, men with male needs. What are we to do about that?’

  The weary leader offered vast treasures as meher and women were found to satiate masculine needs. Brides for those who had no wives, and second wives for married men whose wives showed no inclination to share their husbands’ lust for adventure.

  So the ship anchored again and this time in its belly were women. Each one light-skinned and with pale, kohl-rimmed eyes, sometimes brown and sometimes grey. With henna burnishing their hair and the fragrance of roses trailing their every step, the women enchanted the men, who felt their hearts fill with a wild happiness. Soon the men discovered that the natives were just as enchanted by the women and so was laid down the first rule of Arabipatnam: No strangers allowed within these walls.

  Then, because by nature they were cautious, the men told their women, ‘None of you shall go out unless we are with you.’

  ‘We are far way from our homes. We have no one but each other. How can you deny us the little pleasure and comfort we find in each other’s company,’ the women wailed.